He gave her a small smile. “I didn’t want you to feel left out, but, yeah, part of it was I needed to keep a close eye on you to keep you alive.”
“Then why’d you leave?”
“I had to.”
“No, you didn’t.”
Knowing how painful his departure had been on her, seeing even now the pain in her eyes, he leaned down and kissed her gently. At the soft touch of her lips, desire shot through him and he deepened the kiss, reveling in her softness, her heat, her taste, reveling in the affirmation of life. He rested his forehead on hers. “I didn’t know what to do with the attraction I felt for you. I couldn’t chance ruining things with the family who took me in. And I knew we were both too young.”
“You mean I was your type even back then?”
He kissed her. “You are the only type. Why do you think I always went out with petite girls? They reminded me of you.” He smiled at the look of shock on her face. “And now I realize I’ve been waiting my whole life for us to be ready for each other.”
She gazed into his eyes. “I love you, Park, I always have.”
He brushed his thumb across her lips. “I love you too. But it changed, it’s deeper now, real and raw.”
“I like real and raw.” A note of sexy temptress was in her voice, and as much as he wanted to go there, now was not the time.
He carefully shifted her off his lap. “Buckle up. I’m getting you checked out at the emergency room.” He started the car.
“Seriously?” she asked, clicking her seatbelt. “This is nothing.”
He pulled out of the lot. “Then it’ll be a quick visit.”
She was silent.
He glanced over to find her looking irritated. “Only because I love you so much.”
“Park,” she said softly, actually blushing. Mad was not a blusher.
This could be to his advantage.
~ ~ ~
By the time Mad got home, all checked out and perfectly fine, she couldn’t wait to be with Park. He’d shared so much with her, stuff she’d never known, and now all his restraint where she was concerned made perfect sense. She held the knowledge close to her heart, amazed that it had always been her for him. Just like it had always been Park for her.
“Wait for me on the sofa,” Park ordered before heading upstairs. She figured he was checking if her dad was home. He returned a few minutes later and joined her. “He’s sleeping.”
“Good.”
He grabbed her suddenly, surprising her, and hauled her into his lap. He burrowed his nose in her hair and then kissed her temple.
She looked up at him. “I had no idea you were such a cuddler.”
He stroked her cheek. “I’m just so glad you’re alive. I love you so damn much.”
“Park.” She felt her cheeks heat. There was something so intensely intimate when he expressed his feelings. After not knowing for so long where she stood, well, it was almost an embarrassment of lovey-dovey mushy stuff. “I love you too.”
He gazed deep into her eyes like he was looking into her soul. She felt breathless. He smiled. “I love that look in your eyes like you worship me. It’s a good look for you.”
“I can’t believe I was your type all this time!” she blurted. “I thought I wasn’t pretty enough or girly—”
“You’re more than pretty.” He kissed her nose. “And it’s all natural, inside-out beautiful.”
Her cheeks burned with all the mushy stuff coming her way. “When did you get so poetic?”
He brushed his thumb across her lower lip. “When I realized just how much I love you.”
Her eyes got hot with tears. Her cheeks were still hot too.
He grinned. “You’re adorable when you blush.”
She nipped his neck and then kissed him roughly. “I want to make you blush now. Let’s go upstairs.”
He stroked her hair back. “Maybe we should wait. Your head—”
“Is fine. Let’s do the shower. That was hot. I want your big thick—” She shut up when Park’s mouth slammed over hers. Yes! The intensity ratcheted up quick, urgent need racing through her. His hand slid into her hair, his other hand under her shirt, skimming up her spine. Oh, God, she needed a lot more. Right now. She tore her mouth away. “Naked. Now. Shower.”
He stilled. “I was too rough with you then. I want to make love to you.”
She pulled him back for another kiss and nipped his bottom lip. “Believe me, I liked it. I told you I can handle you. I’m not going to break.”
His gaze was pure heat. “You make me lose my mind. All I think about is taking, not giving.”
“When you take, it’s like giving. Promise.” She got off his lap, stood, and tugged his hand. “Come on.”
He didn’t budge. “Don’t you want sweet words and tenderness?”
“Yes, after you fuck me so hard I see stars.”
“I want more for you,” he said, stubbornly staying on the sofa. “I can control myself better in a bed.”
She rolled her eyes. “And I want a strong man not afraid to take what he wants.”
He shot off the sofa. “I think you just insulted my manhood.”
She wiggled her fingers in a come and get me gesture. “Show me what you got.”
He scooped her up in his arms and carried her upstairs. “You asked for it.”
She giggled, which really wasn’t like her, but she felt almost giddy. She gazed up at him, loving the intensity in his expression that she now knew meant not just lust but deep emotion.
He stopped abruptly in the hallway outside the bathroom door. “We got company.” He set her down and put an arm around her waist. “Hi.”
She turned, expecting to see her dad, but it wasn’t just her dad. It was her dad and a beautiful petite blond-haired blue-eyed woman wearing a red silk robe. She’d never, ever seen her dad have a woman spend the night. At least her dad was dressed.
“Park?” her dad asked. “Mad? Are you two—”
“I love her, sir,” Park said, his voice ringing out loud and clear, nearly making the awkward situation bearable.
Her dad cracked a smile. “Now that is good news.”
Park let out an audible breath and gave her a little squeeze.
“Aren’t you going to introduce us to your lady friend?” Mad asked.
Her dad got serious. “Mad, this is Tina, your mother.”
Chapter Seventeen
Mad’s head reared back. “I’m sorry. What? It sounded like you just said my mother?”
The woman approached—they were the same size except the other woman had large breasts and curvy hips—and studied Mad. She turned back to Mad’s dad. “She definitely took after your side.”
Mad stood there, staring in shock at the woman who’d left Mad when she was only one. She’d seen pictures, but she had no memory of her in real life. “What’re you doing here?” She couldn’t even work up any anger. It was so surreal after the day she had to see the woman, Tina, actually standing in front of her.
“I know it’s been a long time,” Tina said quietly. “I was too ashamed to face you all.”
“Tina reached out to me,” her dad said, “and I brought her home.” That was what he did, brought home people that needed his love and guidance. But that was not what Tina deserved. The woman abandoned her six children.
“Dad? Are you with her?”
He inclined his head.
“You’re with this deadbeat?” Her voice rose in volume, but she didn’t care. “She abandoned her kids and you! And you just take her back now when no one needs her around at all?”
“I know this must be a shock,” her dad said calmly. “Let’s go downstairs, have a cup of coffee, and talk.”
“I won’t be saying a word until she leaves,” Mad said.
“It’s okay, Joe,” Tina said. “I’ll go.”
“Stay here while I talk to Mad,” her dad said.
Tina retreated to the bathroom, quietly shutting the door behind her.
Park looked at her sympathetically. They headed downstairs and settled at the round oak kitchen table.
Her dad blew out a breath. “Coffee?”
“No, thanks,” Mad said. Park shook his head.
Her dad folded his hands on the table. “So I guess you have a lot of questions.”
“How can you bring her here to our house?” Mad asked.
“This was her house once,” her dad said.
Mad scowled. “She has no right.”
Park spoke up. “Was that why you went to Boston for New Year’s?”
“Yes.”
Mad’s tangled emotions and the enormity of her day turned to one fiery focus—that woman did not belong here. She had no right. She seriously wanted to kick someone’s ass. Park took her hand under the table and squeezed. She took a calming breath, but it did nothing.
“So she called you after twenty-five years and suddenly wanted you back?” Mad asked.
“Her husband left her,” her dad said. “She called and wondered if we could catch up.”
“Catch up?” she asked, incredulous. “How about catching her up on the fact that she completely missed our childhood?”
“There’s no excuse,” her dad said. “She defined herself by her beauty for so long. She was Miss Connecticut, you know. But being a mom isn’t glamorous. She had severe postpartum depression. And I guess she just missed her old lifestyle.”
“Lifestyle!” Mad exclaimed. “Just dropped the family lifestyle, huh? Picked up a new better one.”
Her dad leaned close. “My kids mean everything to me. You know that. I love you to the moon and back. She loves you too—”
“That is not love,” Mad said, her voice shaking with rage.
“She was too ashamed to return,” her dad said. “She doesn’t think she deserves forgiveness.”
Mad pounded a fist on the table. “She’s right.”
A moment passed in silence while she tried to pull herself together. Deep breaths, find your calm center.
Her dad went on. “You have a right to be angry. Absolutely. But, Mad, I never stopped loving her. And I wanted to at least try to bridge the gap between you and her and your brothers too.”
How would her life have been different if her mom had taught her how to be like her? A beauty queen, like Hailey, who was so good at connecting with people. All of her insecurities came flooding back.
Mad lowered her voice, finding the words hurt too much to say at full volume. “You heard her say I took after your side like it was a bad thing.”
“It’s a great thing,” Park put in. “You got the best genes.”
But she didn’t believe him.
“Just give her a chance,” her dad said. “Talk to her.”
Mad shook her head. “Do not ask me to do that. She doesn’t deserve it. And you deserve better.”
Her dad’s gaze was direct. “I devoted my life to you kids and I don’t regret that for a minute, but now I have a second chance.”
She stood abruptly and headed out of the kitchen, intent on packing up and crashing on someone’s sofa because she could not stay in the same house as that woman.
“Mad,” Park called.
“Let her cool off,” her dad said.
She went to her room and packed a suitcase. She stopped and stared at it. What the hell was she doing? That woman should leave, not her. This was Mad’s home. She dumped out the suitcase again and then threw it across the room.
“Hi,” a soft feminine voice said from the doorway.
“I have nothing to say to you,” Mad said.
“I’m sorry if seeing me upsets you.”
She glared at the woman. Tina. She refused to think of her as her mother. “It doesn’t upset me. You mean nothing to me.”
“Okay, that’s understandable.”
“Why now?”
“Your dad was always so good to me. A gentleman.”
“You’d better leave. I seriously want to throttle you.”
“How did you get so abrasive? Were there no women around here at all?”
“No! It was me with older brothers and a cop dad, so sorry if I didn’t turn out all girly like you.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Get out of that doorway before I plow you down.”
Tina backed up and Mad moved past her, hands in fists. She headed downstairs, full of so much pent-up energy she didn’t know what to do with it.
“Park!”
He appeared a moment later from the kitchen.
“We’re going to a hotel.”
“Yup.”
She hadn’t thought it would be that easy. “Let’s go.”
“You want to pack a bag or—”
“We don’t need clothes.”
“Got it.”
They left.
~ ~ ~
She fucked him nine ways to Sunday. All she wanted was rough wild animal sex and he gave it to her. It was the only thing that calmed her. Exactly the distraction she needed. But after an entire weekend of that—Monday morning meant back to her college classes—Park insisted on one last slow and tender lovemaking.
He leaned on his elbows and looked down at her. “No more angry sex.”
She wrapped her ankles high around his waist. “I wasn’t angry with you.”
He brushed her hair back, kissed her eyebrows, her closed eyes, her nose, and finally her mouth. “You were getting out all that energy and now I want you to receive some of my good energy.” He kissed her again, slow and deep. “My loving energy.”
Park’s love went straight to her heart and squeezed. The upheaval from suddenly gaining Park and then that woman showing up and ruining everything pushed Mad into a deep well of emotion.
He levered down to place a kiss on her hawk tattoo. She hoped he couldn’t feel the frantic beat of her heart.
He returned to her mouth and then hovered over her, watching her as he continued a maddeningly slow screw.
“Come on,” she said, bucking her hips against him. “I need more.”
He spoke against her lips. “I love you.”
She closed her eyes, trying to hold the tears back. “I know.”
“So now I’m going to show you.”
She tensed, about to break the connection and reverse their positions, when he pinned her wrists over her head.
“Let me,” he said.
She could have easily broken free, but she let him, relaxing in the hold, her energy controlled.
He made love to her in a way she’d never experienced.
A union of souls.
His intense hazel eyes gazing into hers.
Sharing a breath and then another.
And then it was building inside of her, this wave of emotion and pleasure tightly tied together.
“Yes,” he urged her on. “Stay with me.”
She broke, an explosion of pleasure that made her let go of it all, every tight hold she had on her emotions, tears silently streaming down her face. He followed a moment after and dropped his head next to hers, breathing heavily.
Finally he lifted his head. “Mad,” he said tenderly and then kissed her tears away.
He rolled to his side and tucked her against him, one arm around her waist.
She wiped the last of her tears, glad she wasn’t facing him with all her stupid tears. “I need to get out of here. I have to go to class.”
“You have a little time.”
She felt raw, every nerve inside-out and exposed. Every cell in her body urged her to bolt.
He brushed her hair back and kissed her temple. “Just let me hold you a little longer.”
“Hold me tight.”
He did. She felt herself relaxing, her mind clearing, her heart resuming a steady beat.
She’d nearly dozed off when he spoke again.
“Listen, I’m heading out to LA tonight.”
She turned in his arms and stared at him, wide-awake now. “What?”
“Ty offered to help me find w
ork. I haven’t had any interest in my résumé at the airlines. They’re not hiring right now.”
“You just got here and now you’re leaving?” It felt like a betrayal. First he got her nice and vulnerable with all his tenderness; then he pulled the rug out from under her.
“I need to work. I need to be worthy of you.”
“You already are!”
“No, I’m not, but I want to try.”
She jerked away. He grabbed her and she twisted out of his hold. “I can’t believe you,” she said, hating how her voice sounded all choked.
She got out of bed and dressed in quick jerky movements.
“Mad, come on. Give me a chance to make something of myself.”
“I don’t know where you get your screwed-up ideas about who deserves what or whatever—”
“You’re not making any sense. I want the best for you.”
She shoved her feet in her boots and grabbed her messenger bag. “Enjoy LA.”
“Would you wait? You’re my ride.”
She ground her teeth. “Fine.”
She pulled out her cell phone to text Hailey about her shitty life, pointedly ignoring his naked body slowly covering up. Either way, naked or covered, he was irresistibly sexy and it annoyed her that she was still drawn to him when he was pissing her off so badly, abandoning her in her time of need.
She had a text from her dad. Family meeting tonight re: mom.
Great! Perfect! The fucking cherry on top!
That woman did not deserve the title of mom. Josh had told her the story of how their mom left the day after Christmas so she wouldn’t ruin their holiday. Mad didn’t remember any of it. She’d only just turned one. Josh and Jake had been eight, so they probably took it the worst. Ty, Alex, and Logan were six, five, and four respectively. She couldn’t help but think that her being born three years after the last kid had been the last straw.
She paced back and forth, waiting for Park, who’d slipped into the bathroom. She stilled. You know what? Fine. She’d be at this stupid family meeting only because it was her house and she refused to hide out forever. It gave the woman too much power over her. She sent off a bunch of texts to her brothers, who replied predictably with variations of WTF. See? It wasn’t just her that thought the woman was evil and her dad was an idiot to let her back in his life.
Inviting Trouble (Happy Endings Book Club, Book 2) Page 18